


Remember Where You First Called Home

by Ashida



Series: 15 a Piece Prompt Challenge [22]
Category: Finder no Hyouteki | Finder Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Cheese, Fluff and Mush, Immortality, M/M, One Shot, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-10
Updated: 2016-08-10
Packaged: 2018-08-07 22:16:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7731817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashida/pseuds/Ashida
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>It was on the battlefield he first found him, amidst the pungent blood and weak death of humans, like it was the only thing he knew how to give, and the only thing he’d never be able to take. </em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Remember Where You First Called Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Grinner_H](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grinner_H/gifts).



> Part of a collection of 15 prompts given to me by [Hiro.](http://archiveofourown.org/users/oninoshirosaki)  
> The prompt for this fic is [#182 - Value of a day](http://insane-1.deviantart.com/art/200-Writing-Challenge-68163506)
> 
> This is part of a universe I have been thinking of for a long time, I'm glad to be able to finally post a little of it.

It was on the battlefield he first found him, amidst the pungent blood and weak death of humans, like it was the only thing he knew how to give, and the only thing he’d never be able to take.

 

The inhuman grace, the way his blade _sung_ as it whispered through the air to rend limbs from their bodies was all Akihito needed to see. That man was an Eternal, just like him. Cursed to live forever, no matter how dead you were inside.

 

That was the first time he found home, this ideal that humans had like it was a fixed place in time and would always be there, he found it in silken black hair whipping back and forth with violence, he found it in a dance of swords, a musical blur of blades that cut through sound itself, an ageless grace between them that only the obscenity of endless time could bestow.

 

They were on opposite sides when they first fought, locked in a tussle of blocked strikes and successful fends too fast for the humans on the frontline around them to comprehend.

 

That was his first taste of home.  

 

 

 

*

 

 

The second time he found him was after that war, but in between another one, it was all said and done, Empires were happy until they wouldn’t be again, and Akihito was just another forgotten soldier.

 

He found him in a cheap tavern in a bustling harbor city that was crawling with veterans trying to forget their horrors in cheap ale and sour wine. He was sitting alone like it was the only thing he’d ever known, and the only thing he’d ever be able to have.

 

Company of mortals was a short lived thing, and the second time he found home was on the same side of the alcohol stained bar where they sat side by side without a word and drank deep into their cups, sharing their silence with someone else for the first time.

 

Akihito would never forget the taste of that liquor, it was bitter and stale, and one of the best drinks he’d ever had.

 

 

*

 

The first time he made Fei Long laugh, he found that place again. They were travelling to their next life in a Realm on the other side of the world where no one would know their names, or their unchanging faces.

 

They dueled every night on the road, pitting the experience of ages past against each other in fight like neither had ever fought before. It’d taken every ounce Akihito had just to land that one nick with the ever-sharp tip of his blade on Fei Long’s sweat slicked chest, and the sheer _shock_ of losing, the sight of his own blood drew the chiming laughter from Fei Long’s mouth as he looked down at the wound that was knitting shut before their very eyes. “Well that doesn’t happen very often.”

 

Victory had never been so sweet.

 

*

 

 

He found it on that road they traveled, a thing he’d always traveled alone, the sound of footsteps next to him was enough to turn a solitary journey into something it’d never been before.

 

He found it more often after that, he found it in stories unheard by all but him, told in forgotten languages only the Eternal remembered, he found it in a life lived as long as his, with as many tales to tell, and as many days and nights left to tell them.

 

 

*

 

Akihito found home when he first kissed Fei Long in yet another cheap tavern room like so many they’d stayed in before. It was in this unreasonable sense of urgency as he pushed him down on the lumpy feather mattress that Akihito first found a reason to call time precious, like it was the only thing he needed, but the one thing he wouldn’t ever get enough of.

 

It was waking up beside him the next morning and drinking in the view of Fei Long’s body sprawled in the sheets next to him, a moment he wished would never end, no matter how much time they really had.

 

*

 

The next war after that, with an entirely new conflict, with new kings and new queens but the same old reason for fighting; he found it on the frontlines again, on the same side this time. He found it in camaraderie and trust in the person at his back, because they’d plunged so far into enemy lines that reinforcements were beyond them, not that they’d ever need anyone but the other anyway.

 

He caught sight of it in Fei Long’s vicious smile, like he’d finally found a reason to never die, and his first real reason to _live._

 

 

Home was with him, in and endless life actually worth living, with someone worth dying for.

 


End file.
